


through the night

by thegeneralgirl



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, adrien/oc for half a second, askbox angst meme, future!fic, in which lb and cn are separated and marinette refuses to pursue adrien bc he reminds her of cn, late 20's, little does she know..., so to be w him would be patently unfair
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-16
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-09-24 19:31:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9781961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegeneralgirl/pseuds/thegeneralgirl
Summary: Ladybug and Chat Noir find each other again.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For @therentyoupay's long overdue askmeme prompt: "what happened doesn't change anything".

 

Marinette almost doesn’t say it. Adrien is looking at her like he’s rediscovered the sun, and she thinks about how easy it would be to cross the scant foot of air dividing them.

But even though it’s been a long, long time since she’s been Ladybug, Marinette has always been brave.

“What happened doesn’t change anything. This—this doesn’t change anything.”

Adrien doesn’t make a sound—he doesn’t even avert his gaze—but the happiness crumbles from his face. Marinette doesn’t know whether she wants to laugh or cry at the absurdity of it: it is the exact same expression she’d seen on Chat Noir last. They’d thought they were lost to each other forever, when really—  
  
They’d each been in the other’s orbit all along.

*****

She barely remembers what combination of words had been said, what snippets of their past lives had been let slip for the pieces to slot together so neatly. 

But here is Chat Noir and Ladybug, revealed and reunited, ten years too late. Here is Adrien Agreste, newly engaged to a woman that Marinette had introduced him to, a woman that Marinette counts as a close friend.  
  
There is a foot of air dividing them; there is a decade of space holding them apart.

*****

Marinette goes home to her empty apartment. Eyes dry, body tucked into a small ball, she thinks about the terrible sort of sadness that is beyond even tears.

*****

She half-dozes on her couch until someone starts knocking on her door at five in the morning and doesn’t stop.

Dazed, Marinette drags herself to her feet and opens the door. She should have expected him—should have anticipated the dizzying punch of pain, but she hadn't, so she is left wondering how her heart can still be in her throat when she’d been so sure she’d last left it by his feet.

Predawn indigo is just beginning to lighten into soft lavender behind Adrien. The color is the same shade as the dark shadows under his eyes.

“You told me to go out with Emile because it could be good for me, that I had a right to be happy.”

There is a small suitcase behind him.

“You’re my happy.”

The first soft splashes of sun soaks Adrien’s face in gold, hits his eyes in just the right way so the green shifts and changes.

 _Chat Noir_.

A small cry—only a breath, really, a half-exhalation of his name—and Adrien stumbles forward, does what Marinette hadn’t had enough courage to do. Because walking away from him may have been hard, but going to him? Cupping his face in her hands and looking in his eyes and pressing tear streaked kisses to his forehead like he’s doing to her—?

That is so much more terrifying.

“Marinette?”  
  
Standing at her open door, standing on the cusp of something monumental, Ladybug and Chat Noir regard each other through half-lidded eyes.

There is only one thing left to do:

Marinette lets him in.

  
**fin**

 


End file.
